Unprepared
by Phnx
Summary: .:BL/SaekiAshiwara:.  Ashiwara's being sneaky, but Saeki's not buying into it. …Well, maybe a little.


**Title:** Unprepared  
**Series:** _Hikaru no Go!_  
**Character/Pairing:** Saeki/Ashiwara  
**Genre** Humour/Romance  
**Rating:** T  
**Word Count:** 1436  
**Description:** One-shot (…more of a long drabble). Ashiwara's being sneaky, but Saeki's not buying into it. …Well, maybe a little.  
**Disclaimer:** _Hikaru no Go!_ © Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata

xxx

"So… Is this okay?" he asked.

Ashiwara turned to look at him quizzically, or at least that was probably the intention. Ashiwara did not have a face well-suited to dubious expressions, so instead he raised his eyebrow as he beamed. The result was disjointing and sort of really terrifying, so Saeki swallowed nervously before he attempted to clarify his earlier question.

"I mean… you know, with us both being go players… of around the same level of play… being from different study groups… is it really okay for us to… do things… like this?"

With every millimetre Ashiwara's eyebrow rose, his beam went up several intensity marks. "I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Saeki~_kun_. Colleagues go out to dinner with each other all the time."

"Well, yes. That's true. Yes. But, er, generally, these dinners aren't, you know, one-on-one. Or of the candel-lit, rose-adorned, soft-romantic-music variety. Or at one of the colleagues' homes. Or on Valentine's Day. Or—"

Ashiwara now looked confused and slightly hurt. This was a much more natural expression for the big-eyed young man—or it would have been, had he not _still_been beaming. Maybe it was a medical condition? Saeki had once overheard Ogata mentioning something about Ashiwara even beaming in his sleep, though at the time Saeki had been less concerned with the beaming observation and more concerned with that fact that Ogata _had seen Ashiwara sleeping what the hell was that fucking creep doing watching Ashiwara sleep and how did that even happen, anyway?*_

"Do you mean you think this is weird?" Ashiwara asked.

Well, yeah. This was waaaaay beyond weird. This was completely, totally, utterly—

"No, no… Not at all. I'm just wondering if this is appropriate given the situation, that's all."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because, it's—er, that is to say… I mean… Nevermind. I forgot the mention, these napkins are… very nice. With the hearts and all. Oh, and look: they have the letters "SK and AH" embroidered onto them. What a coincidence."

"Oh, I know! I saw them, and I just couldn't resist. There seems to be a lot of merchandise with hearts on it around this time of year, doesn't there?"

"You mean around February 14th? …Hm… I can't say I've given it much thought."

"Oh, Saeki~_kun_! You should really be more observant!"

There was a pause, and then, "Saeki~_kun_? Is there something wrong with your eye?"

"No… It just… does that. You know. Randomly."

"Oh dear. Maybe you should see a doctor?"

Saeki's eye twitched again, but Ashiwara didn't see, because he was already standing up to clear off the table. "Would you like some desert, Saeki~_kun_?" he asked, although Saeki noticed that Ashiwara was already bringing it out into the dining room.

Saeki managed a wan smile. "Sounds great," he said. "Only one plate, though?"

"Oh dear. I'm terribly sorry, Saeki~_kun_, but it seems that I've run out of clean plates. You don't mind sharing one, do you?"

There was that big-eyed beaming again.

"No… that's fine. All the forks but that one are dirty, too?"

"Yes… I'm sorry for the inconvenience, Saeki~_kun_."

Much as Saeki stared, he couldn't detect any insincerity in Ashiwara's patented earnest expression. He sighed and said, "Not at all." After all, if he mentioned the possibility of washing dishes, Ashiwara would undoubtedly discover, to his complete amazement, that he was out of dish soap, too.

They ate in silence, for a time, passing the fork back and forth. Then, Saeki, who felt that perhaps the companionable silence was too companionable, said, "This is good," in reference to the heart-shaped chocolate cake they were consuming.

"Thank you! It took quite a while to make, I must admit."

"Yeah, it looks like it. All those iced roses… And our names, too, separated by that little heart."

"Yes, I had some trouble with that, although the "木" in your name came out rather well, I think."

"Yeah. 's nice."

Saeki wondered if Ashiwara was lonely. Probably, considering that his idea of a friend was that creepy bastard Ogata-_jyuudan_. But, really. To go through all this trouble…

Not that Saeki couldn't empathize, because, weird or not, he enjoyed his little outings with Ashiwara. Morishita and Shirakawa were too… well, old to hang out with, and while he had fun at Waya's study groups, he was by far the oldest person there. Being around Ashiwara was different. He didn't stand out for being too young or too old; when they were together, they just looked like two normal friends. It made him feel…comfortable. Or at least, it had, right up until he realized that when they were together, he and Ashiwara stood out for an entirely different reason, one that had nothing to do with age but a lot to do with frequent touching and sidelong glances accompanied by giddy grins. But that's another matter all together.

Predictably, as Saeki was preparing to leave, Ashiwara suddenly said, "Oh, my—it's gotten so late! Maybe you should stay over."

Saeki considered this for quite a while, and then eventually shrugged and said, "Sure," and was completely floored when Ashiwara began to set up a spare futon. "I figured all your extra bedding would be 'in the wash,'" he said, not really joking at all.

Ashiwara stared at him with that awful quizzical expression again. "It would have been very rude of me to offer you a place to stay and then not have anywhere to put you. I'm… surprised that you think I'd do something like that to you, Saeki~_kun_." Ashiwara must have been pretty tired; it took a moment for his pouty, hurt expression to kick in, and in the meantime Saeki managed to catch of glimpse of an amused eye-twinkle that made his stomach twist up like a wrung out towel and an involuntary smile begin to form.

Still, when the pained expression finally made its appearance, Saeki experienced the sort of guilt that normally only comes from kicking various infant house pets, and the next few moments were spent in an awkward silence while Saeki tried to work up the nerve to apologize. Then, as Ashiwara was gathering some suspiciously new-looking spare toiletries for Saeki's use, the curly-haired man suddenly gasped in choreographed horror. "Oh my," he said.

Saeki looked at him, confused and, despite himself, slightly alarmed. "Ashiwara-_san_?"

"I just remembered," said Ashiwara, permeating apologetic innocence from every pore, "that all of my pyjamas are in the wash…"

Saeki snorted, feeling relieved and a bit gratified. "Of course," he replied, and leaned in for a kiss just in time to catch Ashiwara's blossoming grin.

xxx

"And then she went on and on at the top of her lungs about how I never see her anymore—which is totally a lie, you guys, and anyway, it's not my fault my game schedule's so crazy… well, it sort of is, 'cause I signed up for all those tournaments, but still!—and she was yelling all this in front of the whole restaurant, and everyone kept on glaring at me and muttering to each other, and—"

"SO, Saeki-_san_, how was _your_ Valentine's Day?" Waya interrupted loudly, kicking Shindou in the hope that that would shut him up.

Saeki blinked at the sound of his name, having managed to doze off into a pleasant daydream to escape Shindou's longwinded narrative of his date the night before… Though Saeki noticed that for someone who'd supposedly had such a disaster-filled date, Shindou seemed pretty damned cheerful.

"It was nice," Saeki answered mildly, eyes fixed on the goban. "It looks like black started panicking as the game went into yose… If black had just stayed calm, it might have been able to stay in the lead."

When he was met with silence, he looked up to find the other four boys who'd come that week staring at him incredulously.

"'Nice?'" Shindou choked out, as though unable to believe that such a word had been spoken. "That's all? Just… 'nice'? How… boring." The other three boys were nodding in solemn agreement.

Saeki rolled his eyes.

"Come ooooon," Shindou whined. "What really happened? I bet you totally screwed up, right, and sent your date flying, haha. Give us some deeetails."

"Who says I had a date?" said Saeki drily. When he was simply met with more stares, Saeki sighed and thought back to the night before. "It really was nice," he said. "Really nice." He didn't even notice he was smiling. "We had dinner, played a game of go…"

Shindou looked bug-eyed. "That's it?"

"Though my date was a little, ah ha, unprepared…"

The younger boys stared at him blankly while Saeki just grinned, beaming. The expression didn't suit him, but he didn't care.

-END-

[A/N:

*HikaGo V. 15, Ch. 124: Ogata and Ashiwara share a room during a tournament. …*cough*

]


End file.
